Posts Tagged ‘Lucky Cat’

Our newest employee, Chiaki Honda, recently gave Joe a very unique gift for his birthday. Called “Maneki Neko” or the Lucky Cat (sometimes also the “Beckoning Cat” or the “Fortune Cat”), the ceramic figurine depicts a traditional calico Japanese Bobtail and is placed in the entrances of businesses to bring luck, fortune, and customers through the doors. Joe put ours on the front counter so customers could see the little cat.

The Lucky Cat has a paw raised, which looks like she is waving, but in Japanese culture is a gesture of beckoning or pulling good fortune and customers to you. Sometimes the left paw is raised, sometimes the right. Some businesses have mechanical cats and the paw actually moves.

The cat is also usually depicted wearing a collar, bib, and bell and holding a gold coin called a “koban.” The coin ties into the belief that the cat brings fortune and many of the Lucky Cats are used as “piggy banks.”

When Joe and I were in Philadelphia last fall, we actually saw a Lucky Cat in the window of a home on Elfreth Alley. Elfreth Alley is “our nation’s oldest residential street” and people have lived there for hundreds of years since the eighteenth century. The Lucky Cat in this window had an arm that moved back and forth and Joe and I thought it was waving to us, since we did not know the origins of the cat. There was a little shop next door to the house, so I wonder if the cat was bringing luck to that business? Of course, I made Joe take a photo, since it was a cat.

We want to thank Chiaki for such a lovely present and for wanting to help make the pharmacy even more successful.

With my love of all things feline, I can think of nothing better to guard the pharmacy and bring us luck than a Lucky Cat.